Japan’s ruling Liberal Democratic Party (LDP) entrusted the task of leading the party to its former secretary-general Shigeru Ishiba by electing him as its president on 27 September. This was the veteran politician’s fifth attempt. Ishiba’s immediate priority was to regain public trust which was lost due to a slush fund scandal. This was the reason behind Fumio Kishida’s decision to withdraw from the race as his public approval rating had substantially plummeted.

Ishiba’s first task to tackle the challenge right away was to call for snap elections on 27 October. The election outcome shall test Ishiba’s ability to build a strong political base. The snap poll shall be the first nationwide vote since the slush funds scandal was uncovered within the LDP and it will be an early test of Ishiba’s leadership, who is already grappling with a fragile party support base and public scepticism. After announcing the date for the snap poll, Ishiba launched the party’s campaign in Iwaki, Fukushima Prefecture, one of the areas hit hardest by the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 2011, and its aftermath.

Offering apologies for the slush funds scandal, Ishiba remar ked that “without the reconstruction of Fukushima, there can be no recovery for the Tohoku region; without the recovery of Tohoku, there can be no revival of Japan.” The big question that arises is will the LDP-Komeito coalition come victorious in the snap polls or will the opposition parties secure a majority and form the government? This election offers the voters an opportunity for the first time in three years to make a choice. The other big question is, how are the people going to evaluate the policy lines of both the ruling LDP and the leading opposition Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan as they assess the faces of new leaders aiming for the helm. Therefore, the parties in the fray owe it to the voting public to indicate specific plans of action on their campaign platforms.

The primary goal is to regain the trust of the people that has been dented by the slush fund scandal. The other issues that would come to the voters’ minds are how the political parties keep on the table their plans to deal with the shrinking population due to the ageing of society and chronically low birth-rate, and ad dress global affairs that have become increasingly unstable. On top of all these, plans for po litical reforms to eliminate such sca n dals in the future would be critical for voters’ choice in exercising their franchise. Such self-purification would mean that proceeds from fundraising parties will never go unreported in the future.

For that to happen appropriate laws need to be passed with stringent consequences if they are violated. The existing laws prohibiting political donations if unreported have seen blatant violations by the lawmakers themselves. Not repor ting such political donations is seen as a serious offense, making lawmakers liable to be prosecuted for tax evasion, depending on how the unreported funds were used.

Ever here, the ruling LDP was lax in dealing with offenders as the treatment meted out to offenders was quite mild. By allowing some offending lawmakers to contest the elections on 27 October, the LDP is being seen as letting the offenders use the election for selfpurification. If such offending leaders win in the election, their past offence would most likely be forgotten and they may even be rewarded with plum posts.

Even here, coalition politics play some role. For example, the LDP’s coalition partner, the Komeito, which puts realisation of clean politics at the top of its election platform, compromised its principles by endorsing two former LDP Diet members whom the LDP itself refused to endorse for their involvement in the slush fund scandal. It was a kind of quid pro quo as the Komeito wanted to secure the LDP’s support for its own candidates. Against this background, any overhaul plans for political fund reform in the next government is difficult to expect. Even Ishiba admits that opposition parties put pressure not to tap into its policy activity expenses for the 27 October election.

The irony is that uses of those funds do not have to be reported. They are considered the “hotbed of slush funds.” But so long as the use of those funds is not disclosed, there is no way of verifying if they will indeed be used this time. So overhauling the system with political reforms can remain as a will-o-the-wisp in the murkiness of Japanese politics as most political parties have their own interests to protect. Besides this, the Japanese voters shall have other issues on their plate to measure the credentials of the candidates seeking election. Here the past experiences of the Kishida era need not be the barometer by which the Ishiba’s case can be evaluated as the issues are different now from those Kishida put on the table while seeking votes.

In his time, Kishida had prioritised national security and nuclear generation/energy as major election planks. In the upcoming election, the electorate is less likely to evaluate the performance of the three-year Kishida administration as the issues during the post-Kishida period are very different, but they could be used to measure the credentials of candidates contesting the election. Though the security issue still continues to bother Japan, the post-Covid-19 scenario raises serious socio-economic issues, and these demand attention.

In the financial sector, things are not encouraging either. Prices of essential commodities and necessities have risen. The value of the yen has substantially depreciated. The bank of Japan ended its 110-year ultra-easy monetary policy in March and proceeded with an additional interest rate hike in July. Moreover, Japan faces a serious demographic challenge as fewer babies are being born and the number of elderly is increasing. This situation has put question marks on the sustainability of the social security system and fiscal management. These are serious realities that political parties need to reflect upon and prioritise in their election promises.

(The writer is the former Senior Fellow at the MP-IDSA and PMML, besides ICCR Chair Professor at Reitaku University, Japan)